


the Thing in the Halls

by ningdom



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dehumanization, Gen, Heavily Implied Time Travel, It Pronouns, Monster!Jon, Short, Time Travel, he's all eyes, just almost 2k words of pointless introspective drivel, very very heavy dehumanization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ningdom/pseuds/ningdom
Summary: There is something Other within Micheal's corridors.
Relationships: Michael | The Distortion & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92





	the Thing in the Halls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SixofOne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixofOne/gifts).



> this is just like 1k words of very hesitantly attempted micheal pov. so yeah  
> super short

There is something Other within the corridors. 

Michael does not know when the Thing entered. This is markedly odd - Michael tends to be the thing causing uncertainty and confusion, not the one that suffers it. Still, the feeling is one much at home with the Spiral, and it cannot bring itself to be too perturbed. It’s a rare occurrence, to have a thought without an agonizing split through the middle. Michael is puzzled; the Distortion is puzzled. It is puzzled. 

Still. There is a Thing in the endless maze of doors that is not food/a victim, and the Thing is not Michael. Michael has yet to search for it - the Distortion is waiting to see what the Thing in it’s halls will do. A curiosity/glee. The Distortion simply sees another thing to digest, but Michael has always carried a touch of the Eye no matter how hard it Twists to escape it. What is this new Otherness that slinks through the shadowed corners of Michael’s corridors? How did it enter? 

It can feel the Thing moving, a strange indigestion, the unnatural pain of being  _ known _ , deciphered, understood - to an extent. It is no Michael Shelley; it has no map, no greater direction. It does not try every right door, but seems to genuinely have the determination and the time to try them all until it finds the next, then the next, then the next. Michael wonders vaguely how long the Thing has been at this - the Distortion only noticed it minutes, hours ago from now, but where did it come from? A Thing does not come from nothing. Perhaps, it has been at this slow, methodical Checking of Doors from some Outside place, some horizon so far and distant that Michael could not even feel it until recently. 

Perhaps this Thing will not erode in technicolor stomach acid and juice, it ponders/worries. It certainly feels Solid enough. It moves up and down and through and under halls and guts and twists and turns with a purpose. It is not the purpose of a human determined to escape, slowly pattering away to nothing as they try door after door and find only more swimming wallpaper. There is a void where there should be terror and loss and confusion and doubt - is this what it would feel like, to swallow a black hole? 

But Michael has swallowed nothing like this. If it wasn’t sequestered safely in it’s own prison/home, it may even feel some niggling bud of fear at the sheer impossibility of the Thing in its’ Halls. But it is not easily frightened and surely nothing can hurt the Distortion within its’ own never-ending Spiral, so instead Michael is simply intrigued and slightly annoyed at the consistent twinges of irritation/pain from the Thing slowly Understanding more and more of it’s corridors. Finally, the curiosity is too much to bear. Michael opens the door closest to it, and comes out at the end of the hall the Thing is trudging it’s way down. It notices Michael, certainly, but does not turn around. A prickling like needles in it’s skin or a Twisting of tendons, for a moment, but then the Thing’s Gaze slides off Michael like oil on water. This is somewhat annoying. The Distortion does not like being ignored, not even by Watchers - as that is certainly what it must be. One of the Beholding’s ilk, keen of eye and silver of tongue. Michael has not encountered a Watcher for a time - and that is usually just how it likes it. They tend to bring back memories that refuse to Twist in their red anger. The Distortion has no use for such rigid feelings. 

It is… lesser, than Michael was expecting. No more than a man, haggard and small, frame hunched as condemned Atlas. Still, the horrible feeling persists - a man skin-deep alone. 

“Hello there, little mouse. What… do you think you’re doing in  _ my  _ burrow?” Michael asks. 

The Thing turns around.

Ah. Not skin-deep, then. Michael does not take a step back, but it does slowly tilt its’ head in surprise. The Other had been the picture of a normal man from behind, but it’s face is not so. It has hair - more white than brown, though both colors are there - and wears a set of ratty rags that may have once been clothes, but that is where the humanities end. Michael can relate. The Thing’s skin is not skin at all, but an inky black wispy dark fog. Within that fog are countless eyes of all different shapes and sizes - some animal in their intensity and others unsettlingly human both in looks and emotion. 

The Thing is a Man Made of Eyes.

Certainly a Watcher, then. 

It stares at Michael quietly, every pupil zeroed in on the Distortion. The awful prickling returns. 

_ Ah. You. _

Words float to the forefront of its’ mind, but Michael has had more than enough practice fighting tooth and nail with its’ own thoughts to know that they do not belong to itself. Not exactly a new experience, but it doesn’t come with the same agonizing duality as Michael’s own mind. It isn’t exactly uncomfortable like being Known would be, but Michael dislikes it on principle. 

“That is… quite an invasive trick, little Watcher. Must you?” Michael says. “It’s hard to hear your tone when it’s in my own voice, but should you really be so surprised to see me, considering where you are? You are  _ trespassing,  _ after all.” 

_ Cannot speak. New to this substitute. Surprised, maybe. But, not upset. A sight for sore eyes.  _

The thoughts are disjointed and weightless, floating away as soon as they run through Michael’s coiled mind. The Watching Thing’s million eyes blink off-sync. One, yellow with the horizontal pupil of a goat, wanders away from Michael in an idle search for something. A tiny spike of pain. Michael follows it’s gaze until it sees what the Distortion automatically knows to be the next Correct Door it’s guest will take. Now, Michael does truly feel the rush of alarm/fear it had been so quick to dismiss before. If just one eye had been capable of piercing through its’ twists and folds in mere seconds… the Thing in it’s Halls is choosing not to Know more.

“ hͪaͤhͪeͣʰ ͣhͪeͣhͪehe…” Michael giggles. “‘A sight for sore eyes?’ Clever. You have… so many of them. I’m sure… you could Know your way out of here all in one go. You could Know me into tatters and pieces. Yet, here you are, searching through one door at a time. Why?” 

_ Have killed enough. No more. Very happy to see you.  _

“Really?” Michael says with a slow smile, one that curls at the edges and crescents it’s eyes. “It isn’t every day… the Distortion hears that from one trapped  _ here _ . How… unique.” 

_ Come a long way. Very, very long. Been looking for you. Made it through, if you appear.  _

Michael hums consideringly. Somewhere Outside, indeed. “I believe I may be starting to see the full picture. These corridors do so tend to… loop, don’t they?” 

_ Loop, indeed. A full circle.  _

The Watcher turns, seemingly done with the conversation. A flashing something attracts Michael’s attention, and it looks down to see an eye staring up from the inside of the Watcher’s palm. 

_ Need eye contact to speak.  _

It says as it opens the door it divined to be its true north. A shiver of Wrongness runs up Michael’s spine, but the situation has suddenly become far too interesting for it to matter. “What are you after, so far from home?” Michael asks, momentarily delighted at the Oddness of looking so far down to have a conversation with a hand.

_ Institute. Burn. Burn everything.  _

Michael’s smile stretches even wider, showing far more teeth than that of a human mouth. It stands back and watches as the Man Made of Eyes glances around the new hall it has found itself in - and isn’t that a peculiar thing, to Watch a Watcher. But, Michael is still Michael as much as it is the Distortion, and Became as such in the service of the Eye. Perhaps not so strange, after all. They stand on the ceiling of the new corridor, the creature’s hair falling up towards the floor. Michael stays unaffected by the contorted gravity, not a hair spiraling out of its’ - admittedly - haphazard place. The Thing walks down the ceiling, and though it doesn’t need to move its’ head, this close Michael can feel its’ Eyes sweeping around its insides. The feeling is creeping and sticky, wholly unwelcome, almost as if thousands of spiders are skittering along Michael’s stretched skin. 

“I  _ do  _ like the sound of that.” Michael acknowledges. It’s a late response, but it doubts the Watcher has a better of a sense of time than Michael.  _ Sense of time. _ Michael giggles again.

_ Unsurprising. Thought so. _

Michael has never heard its’ own voice sound quite so dry. Another peculiar experience. “I would ask you to… cease the  _ Looking _ , though. It really is… quite uncomfortable for me.”

_ No other way out. Apologies. Not intentional. _

“Hmm.” Michael hums. “Perhaps I’ll open you a door. I let you out, you don’t See me, and the Institute…” It grins, glee and hatred beyond the Distortion unbalancing it. “What’s a Watcher doing, planning on attacking their own god’s stronghold?” 

_ Revenge. Save others. Door. Now. Door. Door. Michael. Door. _

Michael tips its head, still smiling. “Oh, yes. I do believe the two of us will… get along, won’t we? Yes, I think we will.” It says as it curls five long, manyjointed fingers around a random door handle. “I  _ like  _ you, Watcher. Do you... have a name?”

_ Had one, once.  _ **_Archive_ ** _ , now.  _

“I wish I could say… that I sympathized. Mine still… hangs around, like the stink of a rotting corpse. Impossible to wash out. Still,” Michael says with a shrug as the door opens out into a near empty London side street, sleek with rain and sky dark. “Identity can be hard, can’t it?” It isn’t stupid enough to miss the connection between Archives, Archivist, Archive, and thinks with vitriol that it was a pity Gertude hadn’t fallen on her own sword like the monster before Michael. It would have been  _ poetic. _

The Archive steps out of the corridors, a shiver wrecking it as it passes the threshold. For a fleeting moment, there almost seems to be a human face under the innumerable eyes, but it’s gone again in a blink. 

_ Thank you for your help, Michael.  _

“I’ll be seeing you, Archive. I have a feeling this is only going to get… more entertaining. Call on me when you know… hmm, what you’re going to do next. I’d love to get ...front row seats. You’re practically… soaked in the Spiral. If you ask for me… I’ll hear you.” Michael finishes with one last giggle, sealing the door shut behind it. 

The last thing it sees of the Archive is one dark brown eye, fixed on the gap in the door as it closes shut. 


End file.
